


Wanting

by AcrylicMist



Series: As things Happen-verse [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Demonstuck, Drama, Family Feels, Magic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-29 22:05:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17816354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcrylicMist/pseuds/AcrylicMist
Summary: An aside to As Things Happen that's all about Rose





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look guys its an aside to As Things Happen, just as promised. 
> 
> (This will not make sense without first reading the original fic)

Part one. 

 

She was too young to remember that night. This also meant that Rose was too young to remember what her brother’s face looked like. Some days she could shrug this off and some days the knowledge was so crippling that she couldn’t get out of bed. 

Rose would lay there in her blankets, the comforter pulled over her head, clutching one of the many pictures of him that she was lucky enough to have. She’d study his face, his child-like round cheeks, his eyes uncovered in the photo, shining a shade to match her own. Rose was nine years old now. In the photo her older brother was only six. 

She’d lost Dave. D would tell her stories about him as she grew older, but she couldn’t help but notice that the Dave in his stores never outgrew his six years of age. He was frozen in snapshots that Rose kept framed on her desk. 

“He was so great,” D would say to her, his voice choked when she was still small enough to fit on his knee. “Dave… he was so special. He was a hero that night. He was a hero.”

Was. Past tense, always past tense. They never spoke of Dave in the present. He, much like D’s memories of him, were forever locked in the past. 

Rose knew this meant that Dave was dead, and for years she lived with the knowledge that she had a dead brother that she couldn’t even remember the face of that had, one night long ago, locked her in a dryer and hid her from the home invaders that had killed both of their parents and then taken him as collateral. D said this made him a hero, and people needed to remember heroes, so she strained and strained for just one memory of Dave’s face, feeling like she was clawing her way through blackness, shouting into a great grand void that offered no response until she thought she’d go mad with it until in a fit of desperation her cousin Roxy sat her down and taught her how to scry.

“See?” Roxy told her, holding up the handheld mirror and a red toy truck taken from Dave’s childhood bedroom. “You need something of theirs to make it work. Once you have it, you need to reflect it inside of yourself and onto the mirror. Make it show you what you want.”

Roxy, all of eleven years old at the time and just figuring out how to control the magic in her blood, gritted her teeth and tried to scry Rose’s long lost brother. The mirror flashed black, showing nothing. The surface of the mirror shimmered like oil on water, but there was nothing on the other side to see. Roxy’s face fell, but Rose was still staring at that black screen.

The blankness should have convinced Rose that Dave was dead, but for some reason it accomplished the opposite. 

At least once a year she tried to scry Dave. Incubi might not have been magicians but there was enough magic in her to accomplish this simple task. If anything she could just command the mirror to show her Dave. This trick worked when she tried it on D and Dirk and Roxy, but when she said Dave’s name nothing happened. She tried again. 

But that didn’t matter because every year the mirror stayed blank and black. 

Rose grew up. She aged without a memory of her slain parents or presumed dead brother. D was an excellent substitute father and Dirk and Roxy were excellent siblings, but Rose couldn’t get the idea of Dave out of her head. Maybe it was because his body was never found, but she clung to this foolish hope that somewhere out there in the world, Dave was still alive.

That hope faded with time as the years passed, until Rose was twelve years old and six years older than Dave had ever gotten the chance to be when she found out that there was a good possibility that her older brother was alive. 

Alive! Dave might be alive!

She caught D crying in the bathroom, always so strong but here, breaking on the phone with Roxy and Dirk, telling them the impossible news.

Someone had opened a portal to Hell that had vomited up a bunch of young demons into the world. That was the day Rose learned that Hell was a real place. It was the day she met a Serket demon named Vriska, who while several years her elder was still shorter than her. The girl had been caught in an explosion of hellfire as the portal closed that had cost her an arm and scarred up her face, nearly blinding her in her left eye. 

There was a tube in her arm, the overhead moitor beeping as Rose approached he hospital bed the Serket demon was in with her heart in her throat. 

“You’re Vriska, aren’t you?” Rose asked, already knowing the answer. She could read the demon’s name off of her charts. 

D had thought this would be a good idea, to send her in instead of himself or a private investigator or one of the countless Legislacertors D had hired yesterday to try and hunt his nephew down. Somehow D’d thought Rose would be less intimidating than a full grown demon.

Vriska, newly one-armed and in pain, just stared dully at her before it sank in that Rose had white hair and was wearing a pair of purple sunglasses. Vriska laughed a thin, strained laugh, struggling to sit upright.  
“You’re here about Dave, aren’t you?” Vriska parroted back, interested. 

Rose felt caught beneath the older demon’s gaze, but she lifted her chin, on fire with hope. “Yes,” she answered. “Do you know him?”

“Dave Strider?” Vriska asked, answering all of Rose’s questions with another question. Her brother was alive. The knowledge crawled its way inside her heart and made its home there. She felt it with each passing heartbeat, a repetitive mantra of he’s alive, he’s alive. Her hands clenche into fists at her sides. “Yes, I know him.”

Rose stared at this Serket demon, this memory-eater that had more memories of her brother than she did. It was hard not to feel jealous, irrational as that was. “Is he okay?” Rose asked, desperate. 

Vriska just shrugged. “He was the last time I saw him,” she admitted. “But a lot went wrong there at the end. I don’t know if he ever made it out.”

The stump of Vriska’s arm proclaimed that things had gone very, very wrong, and in any case portals to Hell had never been stable. A few month ago D himself would have sworn that Hell had been closed for centuries, that there was no way in or out, and yet…

“We found the rest of you,” Rose told her. “A lot of you Hellbreakers need medical care. Could you go over a list of those we’ve found to make sure no one else is missing?”

Vriska did so with ease. It was obvious that she knew each of these demons as if they were family. She read their names off of the list with relish, each one anther cry of victory, of freedom. “Nepeta,” she named, nodding. “And Equius, can’t forget him. Those two were always glued at the hip.” She named nearly three dozen others, before one name came up blank. “Makara,” Vriska said, eyeing the list with her good eye. “Where’s Gamzee? He’s not on here?”

“Gamzee?” Rose mouthed the unfamiliar name, her heart sinking. She went over the charts again. “We don’t have a Gamzee listed.”

Vriska was silent. “Sedim demon,” she said helpfully, knotting her fingers into the thin hospital blanket. “Gamzee was strong. I’d hoped out of all of us he’d be the one to escape. God knows he was the only one of us that kept his head in that place, though that’s not saying much since it’s him.”

This point was lost on Rose. It sounded nonsensical and she dismissed it, focused on her brother. 

“But,” Vriska said, staring at her. “No Dave?”

Rose swallowed hard. She didn’t just get her brother back from the dead just to lose him again. “Not yet,” she said, unwilling to even contemplate the possibility that Dave hadn’t made it out of Hell alive. He was fine- he had to be fine. “He’s probably hiding somewhere out there in the world.”

The words sounded hollow even to her and Rose hated it. She just wanted her brother back. 

“Yeah,” Vriska said, leaning back. Her eyes closed. “I can see that. Of fucking course he made it out. He did. He had to.”

“I know,” Rose said, clinging to that same stubborn hope. Somewhere, Dave was alive. She could feel it in her bones. 

For now, that would have to be enough.


	2. Part Two

Rose was eighteen when the phone rang. There was nothing special about it, and she didn’t bother to check the caller ID before answering, which is why Police Chief Johnson’s voice was a pleasant surprise. Few people had the number for the landline to D’s private mansion, but the chief investigator of Dave’s disappearance was one of them. 

“Why, hello, Rose speaking,” Rose greeted him, her mind going back in time to the last of their monthly calls. She thought it was a bit early for the next report, but she didn’t think anything of it until he said, his voice rushed with excitement. 

“Dave was here,” he said without preamble, his tone trembling through the phone. “He was here, Rose, I saw him. I saw him. He came back to the house just like D always thought he would.”

“You what?” Rose said, her voice sharp enough to cut glass as she fell onto D’s velvet couch. “Johnson, are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” the man answered. “I only saw him for a few seconds, but it was him- it had to be. I’m certain the boy was an Incubus and his companion said his name was Dave.”

“Tell me everything,” Rose commanded, her eyes flaring with heat even through there was no one here to control. 

“Go to your computer,” Johnson instructed her. “We got him on video. I’ll send you the link.”

Rose ran for the computer in the back corner of the room. The first few seconds it took to boot up were agonizing. The link was already there, showing the in color view of the department’s main office, shot from behind the desk. Rose didn’t recognize the fey desk worker, but that was an afterthought as a pair of unfamiliar people walked in through the door. There was no sound with the video- she couldn’t hear what was said- but she immediately recognized the taller of the two people.

That was an Incubus demon. Rose was certain of that. He had white hair that shone under the fluorescent overhead lighting and a pair of dark sunglasses covered his eyes. His face looked so much like D’s that it physically hurt. They had the same chin, the same sharp jawline and cheekbones that looked sculpted. But they occupied the space around them in different ways. Dave slouched, trying to remain hidden behind his shorter companion.

Rose took stock of the stranger that stood protectively at her brother’s side. She could see Dave getting more and more wound up, the closed-off line of his thin shoulders tense, and when officer Johnson burst through the door to the back offices, Dave bolted, the grainy video image not recording enough frames per second to show the true speed of his mad dash to the door so that it seemed like he just vanished.

That more than anything proved that this was her brother. Nothing but an Incubus could move that fast. 

Johnson was still talking to her through the phone. “I sent squad cars after them,” he said. “I’ll send you the dash cam of that- it shows him in better quality and we actually talked to each other. He promised that he’d be back in the morning to answer some questions for us.” The police man sounded so damn excited, nearly giddy with relief as he sent the other video link.

Rose clicked on the link with trembling fingers. It showed an older, beat up van with a faded logo on the side that she couldn’t make out. The license plate was blurry, the lettering on it just out of focus enough to be illegible. Rose’s nerves were singing in her as she texted D.

TT: Get back to the house now. Something’s happened.  
TG: ???  
TG: The hell?  
TT: Get Jade and get back here now! I think we just found Dave. He’s alive.

D answered almost immediately. 

TG: ETA 60 seconds. 

Rose didn’t click the start button on the new video quite yet as she switched Johnson over onto speakerphone. 

Jade jumped herself and D into the center of the room in a burst of green fire, abandoning whatever script reading session they’d been at. D stumbled forward, Jade caught him before he could face plant on the hardwood floor and break his shades again. But now was not the time to linger on D’s inability to adjust to teleportation as a viable mode of transport. 

“Where?” he asked, still reeling from the magic that had brought him here.

“Maine,” Rose answered, clicking on the link. “Watch this,” she said, her own voice betraying her with a warble. “They got him on video.”

“Is D there yet?” Johnson asked curiously. 

“I’m here,” D answered, shooting a glance at the phone lying on the desk beside the computer. “What happened?”

The video was still loading.

“He went home,” Johnson repeated softly. “Back to the house. He had someone with him- they broke in around noon. We missed them at the house but then they showed up at the station a few hours later and then again when I pulled the pair of them over.”

The video finished loading as D studied the van with an unknown expression. “You pulled him over?”

“He ran on us,” Johnson defended himself. “I wasn’t letting him go without getting some answers first.”

Rose clicked play and sat back to watch as the story unfolded. 

She watched as the odd scene played out, the companion exiting the van and then going back for his friend. 

Dave.

Rose sat back from the computer, staring at the frozen screen where she'd paused it. Her brother’s face was pale in the glare from the headlights. She couldn’t see his eyes through the shades but she would have bet that they matched hers in color. 

D’s hand came down gently on her shoulder. His palm was warm as he breathed, “Rose…”

“It’s him,” she said, blinking back water from her eyes. When had she started crying? Now that she’d noticed the tears they wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop staring at her brother’s face. That was Dave. There he was.

This was the undeniable proof she’d been hunting for. For the first time she was looking at her brother’s grown up face. He’d be 22 now, no longer a six year old and her elder by five years. 

Her world had turned on its axis.

“He promised to come in the morning,” Johnson said, still talking through Rose’s epiphany, his voice equally gentle. “He’ll be here at nine.”

Nine am. In less than 24 hours Rose would be face to face with her brother. She almost couldn’t fathom it. 

“We’ll be there,” Jade answered for her, her voice low and rushed. “I’ll jump everyone over at eight.”

“Okay,” Johnson answered, swallowing. Rose pictured him stroking his moustache behind his desk. “Okay, eight. I can arrange that. Thank you, Jade.” 

“Not one word of this leaves this room or your department,” D interjected, suddenly anxious. “No one can know.”

“I agree,” Johnson said as Rose’s old fears came rushing back through her euphoria. She’d nearly lost D enough times to now the danger of old Felt members knowing their locations. Those goons would give anything to know where Dave was, especially if the stories were true and he’d been the one to free the rest of the Hellbreakers. The Felt had targeted D before. They’d even come close to killing him a few times.  
Rose didn’t want any repeats of past attacks. She herself had never been targeted because only a few select people knew that she existed. Rose was a ghost in the system, a blip that Dirk and Hal took pains to erase. 

It was an uncomfortable feeling to think that Dave was out there in the world all on his own. Rose couldn’t imagine living without the support that she got from her family. 

“Jade,” D said, drawing Rose back into the present as Johnson discussed the details. “Can you take us to the station tomorrow?”

“I’d be glad to,” Jade murmured, straightening her glasses. 

Rose wasn’t sure if she trusted Jade with something like this so soon. The older woman had been dating D for less than a year and it took Rose a long time to build trust. Having all of Dave’s secrets, her secrets, aired to someone who was still such a stranger was startling. 

But D trusted the Witch wholeheartedly, and Rose trusted D, so that impasse would have to suffice for now. Jade had never given Rose a reason to mistrust her before. The problem might have been that Rose simply had been looking for reasons to be spiteful and petty to the unexpected new ‘mother’ figure that had so unexpectedly come into her life. She’d have to cool that behavior down, especially when Jade has continued to be nothing but kind to her. 

Plus Jade’s teleportation abilities were quite useful. 

“Alright,” D said, scrubbing at his eyes beneath his shades. “Tomorrow morning, bright and early.” He looked at Rose. “We’re going to find your brother. We’re going to bring him home.”  
…

 

Rose didn’t sleep at all that night. She didn’t eat either. Her stomach was too over-excited for food. Normally when she was feeling like this, sleepless and restless, she’d jump onto her private call line to ‘entertain’ a bevy of attentive internet lovers/patients. It took far less effort than going out into the city in disguise to hunt the proper way, and she enjoyed the lack of actual contact. 

She’d found a way to cheat her own biological system. Take that, Freud. The Internet was an endless supply of eager customers brimming with sexual frustrations for her to psychoanalyze. And if she left her marks in a far healthier sexual state than when she’d encountered them, the better for the world and everyone in it. Rose Strider-Lalonde: Sexual therapist. She rather liked the ring of that. 

But not tonight. She spend the hours tossing and turning, anxieties running through her veins. 

Her alarm rang all too quickly and she bounced out of bed and ran for the bathroom, eager to get ready. Due to the time change from L.A to the Maine police station it was still very early in the morning. 

Rose did her hair and put her tinted contact lenses in. The contacts were blue, and over her naturally red irises they gave her the appearance of having violet eyes. She rather liked the change since she disliked sunglasses, though she envied their ease of removal as she blinked the lenses into place. There was only a hint of warding magic in these lenses, just enough to stop her from accidentally controlling someone. If need be, she could easily overwhelm the small spell in the event of an emergency. 

Jade and D were waiting in the living room. D was pacing the floor, his broad shoulders tense. Jade looked deceptively at ease as she reclined on the velvet sofa, her dark hair falling around her in waves. 

“Are we ready?” The Witch asked. 

“I believe so,” Rose answered, swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” D said, still pacing. 

“Dear,” Jade fretted, stopping him as he marched by with her hand on his arm. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Let’s just go,” D said, and Jade nodded, rising from the couch. Her wild hair was curling in an invisible wind, green fire sparking behind her eyes. 

Rose linked hands with the magician, and in a flash the plush cliff side mansion dissolved into green.  
…  


tentacleTherapist (TT) opened memoboard [waiting] at 8:15am!

TT: D?

televisionaryGiant (TG) and gardenGnostic (GG) are active chums!

TG: what is it?  
TT: Isn’t that obvious from the title of this memo?  
TT: I’m growing sick of waiting. How much longer until Dave gets here?  
GG: Johnson said the meeting was at nine.  
TT: Okay. That’s only 45 minutes away.  
TG: I think i can manage that, since its been over fifteen years since ive seen him. I guess another 45 minutes won’t kill me  
GG: I certainly hope not :(  
TG: relax, it’s a joke  
TG: Okay maybe i’m a little nervous  
TG: who here isn’t?  
GG: I’m not.  
GG: I’m so excited! I can’t wait to meet him! Ever since I heard about dave ive ben praying that we find him and now we’re so close! I can’t wait!  
TT: And yet here we are.  
TT: Waiting.  
TG: What do you want, rose? I know you too well to know its no burning desire to chat that’s driving this asinine conversation. What do you really want to say? Without Johnson hearing or else you would be discussing this out loud and not in a memo  
TT: Shit.  
TT: Well…  
TT: I suppose I must admit that I’m scared.  
TG: Me too.  
TT: What do I say to him? He doesn’t know me.  
TT: and I don’t know him.  
GG: Rose…  
TT: No, Jade, wait please. I want to get this out.  
TT: He’s been alone out there in the world all this time. We fucked up, guys. It took us years too long to find him. I can’t imagine what he’s been through while on his own. I don’t want to picture what life he must have lived.  
TT: And all of that? That’s our fault for not finding him sooner. All that pain we caused him- that’s on us.  
TG: That wasn’t our fault rose. Dave’s a smart kid, always has been. He didn’t want to be found.  
TT: That’s another thing D… Dave’s not a kid anymore.  
TT: Jesus, he’s older than me. I’ve always imagined him as a child, or at the most a fourteen year old. As time passed I never imagined us finding him even though I could feel it in my bones that he was alive.  
TT: He’s all grown up now. What if… what if he doesn’t need us? What if he wasn’t looking for us and this is all some big misunderstanding and he resents us for losing him? or at the very least blames us for not finding him sooner.  
TG: There were ways for him to be found if he truly wanted to be.  
TG: Hell, he could have just put his face on the internet somewhere and Hal would have found it. he could have rented a fuckin billboard  
TT: Exactly. He clearly didn’t want to be found. What if he still doesn’t?  
GG: I’m sorry, but I have to believe that he did! He went back to his childhood house and then went to the police station. That has to mean he was at least curious about what kind of response that would cause.  
TT: But then he ran!  
TG: Because Johnson scared him off- its not an unreasonable reaction, especially if the Felt have been hounding him too.  
TT: And the FELT.  
TT: I don’t even want to imagine what they did to him.  
TG: Look, we can’t change the past. No matter how much I want to, what happened happened. It can’t be undone. I lost my sister, but I’ll be damned if I lose Dave too  
TG We can only work together to make his future a better one.  
GG: Rose, what is it that you want?  
TT: What I want?  
TT: What I want doesn’t matter right now. This is all about Dave.  
TG: Nice try but no dice  
TG: This is about you too  
GG: Yeah! We’re in this together  
TT: What I want…  
TT: I just want my brother back.

tentacleTherapist (TT) has become an idle chum!

 

Rose set her phone down and glanced at the clock on the wall. 8:55. Five minutes left. 

D was still fiddling with his phone, refusing to make eye contact as he presumably pestered Jade. Rose didn’t say anything until the clock had passed 9:15. 

“D.”

The older Incubus looked up from his smartphone, resigned. 

Rose motioned to the time with her eyes. “It’s past nine.”

Officer Johnson said nothing, but he shrugged when Rose looked at him. 

“They might just be running late,” Jade cautioned, playing the devil’s advocate to Rose’s cynical view. 

Nine thirty came and went. Then 9:45. Rose’s eyebrows grew close together in a frown as the seconds passed. 

At ten o’clock Johnson put out an APB on the van Dave’s companion had been driving. The hours passed. By noon Rose had to accept the fact that maybe Dave wasn’t going to show up. She didn’t think that anything had happened to him, not here, not in this town where everyone kept their eyes peeled for the sight of white hair, so she had to admit the fact to herself. 

Dave had, for whatever reason, decided not to show up. 

Abruptly, she was angry. 

How dare he? How fucking DARE he? Didn’t he know how badly she wanted to meet him?

“I don’t know what to say,” Johnson admitted, wringing his hands. “I really thought they’d be here.”

“So find them,” Rose argued. “It’s a small town. They must have checked into a hotel somewhere. How many of those can there be?”

“Alright, though that’s not exactly legal,” Johnson said, turning to his computer. “I’ll take them not showing up as probable cause. Can’t be too careful, you know,” he said with a wink, rapidly typing into his computer. “I’ll soon have a list of everyone matching their descriptions that checked into any hotels within a thirty mile radius.”

“Thank you,” D said gratefully. 

It took another hour of combing through the records that poured in before they got a hit. “Bingo,” Johnson said triumphantly, leaning back in his chair. “Two males checked into the Starlight Hotel yesterday. One matches the description of this Karkat fella. They can’t give us a description of the other, but they remember them driving a van.”

“How far away is this hotel?” Jade asked, excited.

“Not too far,” Johnson answered, sighing. “But the owner says they checked out early this morning and left around eight.”

“Dammit,” D cursed, scowling.

“But we do have something,” Johnson said, “they paid with cash, but the guy signed his name as Karkat Vantas on the sign in book.”

Rose was already on it. 

tentacleTherapist (TT) began pestering timaeusTestified (TT) and timaeusTestified2.0 (TT) at 1:44pm!

TT: I need a favor.  
TT: Like what?  
TT: You know we’ve got your back.  
TT: Why is your IP pinging from fucking Maine?  
TT: I can’t tell you everything yet, but we’ve tracked down a lead to Dave and I need you to help follow up on it.  
TT: Holy shit, anything, yes. What is it?  
TT: A guy named Karkat Vantas. I want everything- Facebook, Instagram, you name it. This guy… he knows where Dave is.  
TT: How can you be so sure?  
TT: I’ll send you the link.

tentacleTherapist (TT) sent link dashcam vid of dave!

TT: We caught him in Maine but missed him. They guy he’s with- that’s Karkat. I want to know everything about him.  
TT: FUCKING ON IT.  
TT: We’ll get the full scoop and report back to you, don’t worry.  
TT: Even if there’s nothing online about him- we’ll find him. I promise. he can’t hide from us.  
TT: I’m telling Roxy immediately.  
TT: Okay, but try not to let anyone else know. This is a big deal and we can’t have the news leaking to the wrong people.  
TT: Understood.  
TT: Okay Rose, we’ll handle it from here. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.  
TT: Thank you.

Rose looked up again. “I’ve already sicced Dirk and Hal on this Karkat guy. They’ll find him.” She said this with confidence. He cousins wouldn’t let her down. 

“May God have mercy on any embarrassing photos he might be trying to hide,” D said, joking to relieve the tension. “They’ll tear him apart. I won’t be surprised if we have his chumhandle within the hour.”

“Probably not that fast,” Rose cautioned. “I want to check out that hotel.”

“Why?” Jade asked, confused. “They’ve checked out. There’s nothing there.”

“Yes, there is,” Rose said, closing her eyes. “There’s everything that I need.”  
…

Rose walked into the hotel room. It was a neat, single bed kind of place. She’d spent the night in many of these before, eager to escape the sometimes claustrophobic isolation of the mansion. The lone bathroom door was closed, the closet empty. They’d left nothing of consequence behind them.

Except for, maybe, the one thing Rose was looking for.

Jade bit at her lip as Rose brushed her fingertips along the top of the unmade bed.

Something caught beneath her nails, a fine, pale strand. Rose held the hair up to the light and its color was revealed—white. 

Jade handed Rose the mirror wordlessly as Rose clenched the hair in her fist and held up the mirror. That toy truck from Dave’s bedroom might not have held a strong enough attachment to its one-time owner to correctly scry, but a little bit of fresh DNA never lied. 

“Show me my brother,” Rose commanded, her eyes flaring red even through the contacts she wore. Her words were an order the mirror couldn’t refuse, and she had a faded second of color birthing like ink across the still glass before a darkness fell across the screen. 

She’d failed.


	3. part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part three is up!

Rose had no choice but to go home empty-handed. It was a special kind of agony to have been so close, Dave had been right there, she’d held part of him between her fingers, and yet…

She gave in and pestered Dirk and Hal. 

TT: Any luck?  
TT: You know it’ll take a few days to run through all the algorithms. Vantas isn’t as uncommon a last name as I thought- there’s hundreds to comb through. Obvious portals like Facebook let me down. This Karkat fellow must not have an account.  
TT: Does that mean you can’t find him?  
TT: I never said that. It’ll just take some time, a few days maybe. Someone out there knows him and that means he’s left fingerprints all over the internet. All I have to do is find them and then link them back to him.  
TT: Unlike Dirk, who needs sleep, I can keep on the trail 24/7 due to my status as a superior intellectual being. I’ll find him for sure.  
TT: Rose, you know we wouldn’t make a promise we couldn’t keep. Between the two of us there’s no where he can hide.  
TT: Then why can’t you just find Dave like this and skip all the extra hassle?  
TT: …  
TT: Well…  
TT: Its not that simple. For starters until yesterday we didn’t even know what he looked like or if he was going by a different name. Incubi hair might not take dyes well but there are ways to disguise himself aside from a pair of sunglasses. Its hard to find someone who doesn’t want to be found who also doesn’t have an image to look for.  
TT: We had nothing to find Dave with.  
TT: But now we do. Trust me when I say I’m looking for him as well.  
TT: We’ll find him.  
TT: We’ll bring him home.  
TT: And I suppose all I have to do is wait?  
TT: Sorry cuz, but this time you’ll have to sit out and let us handle this.  
TT: This sucks. I feel so helpless. Everyone has done everything to find him… except for me.  
TT: No.  
TT: NO.  
TT: That’s not what’s going on here. You’re doing everything you can.  
TT: I couldn’t even scry him, Dirk. Hal, is there anything that would have prevented the scry from working? I had a fresh hair sample from him! There’s absolutely no reason why that shouldn’t have worked. Not even Jade knows why we failed.  
TT: I’m not sure.  
TT: There do exist a few secret ways to avoid magical eyes but they’re all highly experimental and temperamental. I doubt Dave has found some magical artifact that circumvents scrying.  
TT: But all the same let’s not count that out. If anyone could pull something like that off I’d bet it’d be your brother.  
TT: What about Roxy? How’s she taking the news?  
TT: She and Jake are baffled but hopeful. Of course, Jake still won’t be coming back home ahead of schedule but I bet the news made him at least consider it.  
TT: :(  
TT: Oh dear, Roxy’s wearing off on me. An actual emoticon, what new monstrosities shall my unwitting fingers type next? Le sigh  
TT: Okay that just gave me the fucking chills and I don’t even have a body.  
TT: Christ, why are your text colors so similar I thought I was having a stroke.  
TT: I’m glad that the two of you are trying to distract me, but I’ll let you go. You’ve got some work to do.  
TT: Okay.  
TT: Love you, Rose.  
TT: Hang in there.  
TT: Thanks guys. I love you two as well. 

tentacleTherapist (TT) has become an idle chum!

Rose set her phone down with a grimace. It had been only 24 hours but she wanted answers now. as if her favorite cousin had read her mind, Rose received a quick pester from Roxy as their active memoboard lit up with activity.

TG: gurlllllll  
TG: Can you tell me why I just got the feeling that someone, somewhere, was impersonating me?  
TT: Lies and slander.  
TG: Anyway, im droppin some info in the gc so heads up ;)

The memoboard [Cream of the Crop!] is an active chat!

TT: Bloody hell, Hal, did you change the fucking memo name again?  
TT: No? Not every technological occurrence that plagues you has my name behind it you know.  
TT: In fact, its only 85% of the time that it’s me actively trying to piss you off.  
TG: GUYS FOCUS!!!!!  
TG: I…. Have…NEWS!  
TT: Okay. What’s the news?  
TG: wait wheres jakey I wont announce this without him  
TG: its too imporpant!!!  
TG: * important  
TG: Like shit guys do I have to make myself anymore clear that ive got some BIG NEWS?????  
GT: well i could certainly go for a spot of good news. Im having a lame time over here across the seas :(  
TG: WELL THEN YU SHOULD COME HOME JAKE!!!!!!  
TG: but anyways, heres the good news……….. … … . .. .. .. I finally plucked up the courage and asked jane out  
TT: And did she say yes?  
TG: Well she didn’t say no! That means ive got a chance right?  
TG: rite?  
TG: ive known her for years. I don’t want to spoil our friendship by askeing her out and then having things get weird between us if things don’t work out  
TG: but I was going crazy hanging around her all day and knowing that I wanted more- I couldn’t take it any longer. So I straight up asked her out on a date  
TT: Sounds like there was nothing straight about it.  
TG: Exactly! What if I messed up?  
TT: Roxy, I’m sure that Jane values your friendship more than anything. Even if she turns you down I’m sure you’ll still be friends.  
TG: but……  
TT: No buts! Jane cares about you, you dummy. Of course she’ll say yes.  
GT: I think this is a great idea! Blimey rox, I hope all goes well for you  
GT: I’ve got more than my fingers crossed if you know what I mean  
TT: For the love of God please be talking about toes.  
GT: Legs too! What did you think I meant?  
TT: Please, someone end this.  
TT: Okay okay, subject change! As the sole voice of reason I must say this: Roxy, I’m so, so happy for you.  
TT: I’m sure that everything will work out just fine.  
TG: You really mean that?  
TT: I do.  
TG: Thanks cuz. That means a lot to me  
TG: So I guess I’ve got to go get ready for my date, don’t i  
TT: Yes, go make yourself feel nice about this. You deserve the world, Roxy, and I’m sure Jane knows this.  
TT: Yah, I’m sure things will be just fine.  
GT: its all aces from me  
TT: Now go get her Roxy.

Rose sighed and put down her phone before Roxy could sign off, her eyes blurring as she blinked back tears that would only irritate her contact lenses. If only all of her problems could be as easy to solve as handing out dating advice to her family members. How was it that Rose was a wiz at all interpersonal relationships except for her own?  
...

A week passed in stubborn silence. 

Dirk and Hal kept her updated. 

TT: Sorry Rose.  
TT: The police video was too grainy to get a proper image description of the van or the license plate.  
TT: It’s okay guys. I know you’re doing your best.  
TT: What if that’s not enough?  
TT: I ask myself that question every day.  
…

 

TT: And?  
TT: Nothing to report, sorry.  
TT: Oh.  
TT: Okay.  
…

Until,

TT: Hey, guess what? I found a tabloid magazine that ran a really shitty cover story.  
TT: The shittiest actually.  
TT: And why would I be interested in shitty tabloid magazines?  
TT: Here. I think you should see this for yourself. 

timaetusTestified (TT) send link [check it out]!

Rose clicked on the link with curious trepidation. She didn’t hold stock with such magazines, they ran articles on D all the time, but if Dirk and Hal thought it was important…

It took Rose a second to realize what she was looking at. “DEMON IN THE SERMON!” the headline read in blocky red letters, “KARTER VANTAS’S SON DATING DAEMON KIND???”

Quickly Rose devoured the article, then looked at the photo attached. It showed the back of a white-haired young man’s head. The photo could have been of anyone, but the headline coupled with that name, Vantas, it couldn’t be a coincidence. 

Rose immediately turned to her cousin’s on her phone screen, typing away with trembling fingers. 

TT: What am I looking at?  
TT: Karter Vantas is the head of a large church in NYC. He preaches mostly on equality and acceptance of Daemon kind. As good as that sounds, here’s the important bit- he has a son named Karkat.  
TT: Karkat Vantas- we got him. we found him and now I know everything about him. Senior student at NYCU, studies literature and English, has three other siblings, and most importantly is dating a presumed demon named Dave.  
TT: Now here’s where it gets weird. Tell him, Dirk.  
TT: I actually know this guy. He’s an enormously respected DJ in the city. He tends to keep to lower baller joints and mob-run gigs but from what I’ve heard he’s pretty fucking good. I’ve even met him before.  
TT: Dave, not Karkat. And Roxy knows and had worked with Dr. Vantas before. Apparently Karkat and Jane are good friends.  
TT: But is this our Dave?  
TT: I… I’m not sure. I never heard word that he was an Incubus and shit like that spreads like fire in my profession. I know he was fired from a few clubs after this article was published, but he’s still doing pretty good in the field.  
TT: But you’ve met him? How hard would it be to tell if he was an Incubus?  
TT: That’s hard to say. He keeps his eyes covered while on stage and the hair might just be dyed like that. Word is he’d a bit of a slut but I can’t let that stand as the deciding factor, especially knowing the rest of these fuckboy DJs out here.  
TT: If its him, he’s done a very good job of keeping this secret.  
TT: Which all and all fits the bill- he’d have to lay low to escape the Felt.  
TT: But KARKAT- this has to be him! It has to be!  
TT: I Know.  
TT: We know.  
TT: The odds of this Dave being our Dave stand at above 95%. I can say with confidence that even with Dirk not knowing 100% if this Dave’s a demon, all other factors accounted for this is Dave. Our Dave.  
TT: Rose… we found him. 

The screen blurred through a layer of tears that obscured the words, but that wouldn’t do so she hurriedly wiped them away and continued typing, her heart racing. 

TT: We found him.  
TT: Dear God, we found him!  
TT: I can’t find any online fingerprint about Dave himself but I’ve got everything we need to know about Karkat. Address, workplace, credit card information- you name it and I’ve hacked it. I even have his Chum Handle.  
TT: Don’t ask for it immediately though- we have to use tact.  
TT: WHY? Why can’t I just email or call this Karkat right now?  
TT: For one he wouldn’t believe you.  
TT: And secondly- Roxy got a call from Dr. Vantas today. She’ll be heading over to the church to pick up some cursed items at noon.  
TT: All we need to do is make sure that Roxy brings up the subject to Dr. Vantas- he worked on the demon rehoming project personally to help the Hellbreakers settle in. if Roxy asks, he’ll not only know about Dave, but can be trusted to act in Dave’s best interests.  
TT: So here’s the plan. We simply get Roxy to conform that Dave is Dave, and then we move on from there. His son lives in the city and won’t be there and I can only assume that Dave will be sleeping at this time of day, so she’ll just meet with Dr. Vantas. It’s the perfect plan.  
TT: And if it is him?  
TT: Then you’ll be the first to know. They’re meeting right now. If all goes well we should know definitively Dave’s exact whereabouts within the next hour.  
TT: Oh my God. 

Rose looked away from the phone, silent tears running down her face. Dirk and Hal continued to stream excited condolences to her but she didn’t read them. Her mind was racing.

Could it really be this simple? After everything that had happened so far, could finding Dave really be as easy as asking one of Jade’s work buddies if his son was dating an Incubus?

God, Rose hoped so. She craved a stress-free way to lay aside all of her fears, but as the seconds passed her anxieties grew and grew.

And then her phone rang. The caller ID read Roxy’s name. 

Rose tucked the device to her ear. “Hello?”

“ROSE!” Roxy screamed, overjoyed. She sounded like she’d been crying. “You will never believe who I have here waiting to talk to you!”

“Who?” Rose asked, not daring to hope but wanting, wanting so badly for this all to be real. 

Her heart was in her throat as she heard Roxy transfer her phone to a second speaker and then someone said, “Rose?”

That one word was all it took, and Rose’s shriek reached the rafters of D’s mansion. 

She’d found her brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we know the rest from here.
> 
> I'll say, this was a fun little look into Rose's POV. I really enjoyed writing about her and seeing how everything ties together in the end. It's such a beautiful story.

**Author's Note:**

> The drama is just beginning!


End file.
